


you and me and the war of the end times

by stefonzolesky



Category: Igby Goes Down (2002)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-06-05 03:35:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15161693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stefonzolesky/pseuds/stefonzolesky
Summary: Igby doesn’t need time. He needs to wise up and get away.





	you and me and the war of the end times

The worst thing about death, Igby finds, is how much it makes him care.

 

“Jason,” Oliver says, and the name sounds foreign off his tongue, feels odd in Igby’s ears. “She’s gone. You don’t have to hear a product of your lies anymore.”

Igby is on the edge of his chair. “It was one of the only things she gave me.”

“Jason,” Oliver repeats.

“You don’t have to say that.” Igby glances up at his brother, Oliver standing solely because he wants the upper hand. “Saying that doesn’t humanize me. It makes me feel plastic.”

“Plastic?” Oliver asks, and Igby thinks at some point, “Oliver” stopped being “Ollie,” he stopped being the brother Igby could have cared about, though he hasn’t quite figured out why. “Like you might melt if you get too hot?”

“Exactly,” Igby says. His voice is dry, emotionless.

 

Jason feels like plastic, like metal rods instead of bones and joints that need to be greased up. Jason feels like he’s losing his mother all over again. He wished it would come until it did.

And Igby doesn’t fucking  _ care. _ Because she was never good to him. She never gave him anything worthwhile, besides a stupid name.

Jason is looking a lot better.

 

“Igby,” Sookie says, and “Igby,” D.H. says, and “Igby,” say all the relatives that Igby hasn’t seen in years, or doesn’t remember, and they’re only around because his mother is dead.

“Jason,” says Oliver. Igby still doesn’t like it.

Jason -- the real Jason, not the one that Oliver keeps trying to fabricate -- doesn’t say anything. Igby watches him stare with dead eyes, and decides that maybe they’re a little too similar.

 

When Igby sees Oliver, the words that slip off his tongue are, “Why won’t you let me get away from you?” because he  _ tries, _ he tries so fucking hard to get away but somehow he always gets tangled up in this mess, and fuck, his brother is the only family he has left.

(He has D.H., Oliver reminds him, but Igby thinks that maybe D.H. shouldn’t count.)

“I don’t try to keep you around,” Oliver says. “You just keep coming back.”

 

The difference between Igby and Jason, Igby finds, is exactly  _ how much _ he cares.

This isn’t the real Jason -- this is the Igby-Jason, Jason-Igby, kid who maybe wasn’t such a fucking liar, kid who listened to his parents.  _ That _ Jason cares a whole lot more than the dead-eyed man Igby-Jason finds himself feeling so sorry for.

Sookie tells Oliver to give Igby some time. Oliver says that Jason can have all the time he needs.

Igby doesn’t need time. He needs to wise up and get away, but, for some reason, he can’t bring himself to.

 

“You don’t really want to leave, do you,” Sookie asks him, but it’s less of a question and more of a statement.

“I don’t know,” Igby admits. “I should. It’s all I’ve ever really wanted.”

There’s a heavy silence, before Sookie says, “Your mother.”

“What?”

Sookie frowns. “You didn’t want to leave here. You didn’t want to leave Ollie. You didn’t want to get far away.” She shifts. “You wanted to get away from your mother. Now that she’s gone, you don’t have a reason to leave.”

Igby contemplates that for a minute. He’s been stumped.

“I guess you’re right,” He admits. “But I really wish that you weren’t.”

 

He thinks that D.H. might not be the person to ask, “Should I go back to being called Jason?”

D.H. proposes the question, “Is that your name?”

Igby doesn’t really know. He wishes he knew --  _ God, _ he wishes he knew, because he’s never had a name crisis like this, and he doesn’t think he’s equipped for it. Everyone else is pitching in to help him, but it’s doing absolutely  _ nothing _ .

 

He sits on the roof of their stupidly big house and watches the sunset that night. Igby has a final tie to his mother, and he can keep it near his heart, or he can sever it like he’s always wanted to sever himself from her until the minute she died.

His ideals are turning him on his head.

 

The problem with travel, Igby finds, is the fact that it makes his head spin. 

Time zones shift his sleeping schedule, and he finds himself missing home more often than not. Still, he continues to travel like it will force a drive back into his blood.

“You just need to find a purpose,” Sookie tells him. For some reason, he always ends up back in her bed. “Something to do. Somewhere to go.”

“I have plenty to do,” Igby snaps.

Sookie laughs, rich, and her head flies back.

“If you have plenty to do,” Her voice is soft, “how come you always end up back here?”

Igby wishes he knew.

He grabs his shirt from beside the bed. “I should visit Ollie.”

Sookie sits up, holding the sheet over her chest as she watches Igby gather his things, pull on his shirt, tug on his shoes.

“Give me a call,” She says.

 

“I feel like a fake person,” Igby says.

 He’s sitting across from Jason. He speaks to Jason, because Jason won’t listen. Jason is blank in the face. Jason absorbs the information, but he’ll never tell a soul.

"Like I’m a character in a cartoon.”

Jason shifts. Igby sighs and stands up from his chair. He doesn't know why he thought this would help.

  
  


“Fucking stupid,” He says, out loud, and startles Ollie to look up from his book.

“I’m sorry?”

“Nothing,” Igby lies. He falls into himself, into talking to himself, and into a void that has been growing in his chest for who-knows-how-long. “Nothing.”

Oliver hums something of understanding, confusion, and resignation. He goes back to his book.

 

There will always be something missing. Death leaves a taste on Igby’s lips, has him missing something he never dreamt of missing. He questions fact, he changes courses. 

Death opens new doors.


End file.
